


Without Reservation

by ReaperWriter



Series: CS AU Week [6]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 3x10, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain Swan AU Week, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 12:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1899618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His unfailing belief in her prompts Emma to make a choice after returning from Neverland.  But when the new curse pulls them apart, they'll find out just how much can change in a year.</p>
<p>Canon Divergence AU from Episode 3X10 through the end of Season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without Reservation

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the lovely feedback these have been getting. As always, notes and kudos are appreciated. You can find me on Tumblr at http://theadventureofhistorygirl.tumblr.com
> 
> Thanks always to Adam and Eddy, who brought magic to the realm without it.

He had been dead asleep on the Jolly Roger when he heard the soft sound of footsteps above deck. Rising and grabbing his sword, he made it to the foot of the ladder when the door crept open, and a beautiful blonde woman stood at the top of the stairs.

“Emma,” he breathed. “What are you doing here?”

Wordlessly, she climbed down the stairs, and he suddenly found himself wrapped tight in her arms. “You’re the only one who believes me. About Henry. Something’s wrong, but Regina and my parents, and…even Neal, they think I’m crazy.”

“You’re not crazy, love.” He brought his good hand up, brushing it through her hair. “I’ve still never seen you fail, love. If you say something’s not right, I’ll do all in my power to help you.”

Her eyes came up, searching his, using that super power of hers, he knew, and so he simply met her gaze, trying to convey the truth of his words. Then her lips came up and pressed into his, and he felt a shudder pass through him.

“Thought that was a one time thing, lass.” He pulled away a little, but left the foreheads pressing together.

“I was scared then.” Her hand came up, running through the hairs at the back of his neck, and Gods, he wanted her so badly.

“Emma, love, I told Baelfire I would step back, let you have your best chance. To give Henry his family.” He felt the childish huff against his chest as she looked down, and then brought her eyes back to his. It was like getting caught in a stormy sea.

“Neal lost his best chance when he walked out and left me to rot in jail,” she said. “He’ll always be Henry’s father, and I will do everything I can to include him in _his_ life, but he’s not the future I want.”

“Swan, there’s no going back then. You’ll never be rid of me.” He can feel the barest edges of his control.

Her lips came back up, pressing against his. “Good,” she murmured. And then they didn’t say anything for a long, long time.

In the light of day, it made the truth of what Pan had done to them all more brutal. To have finally, finally come home to each other’s arms, only to be torn apart. To not have the chance to tell her family, to let him get to know Henry. And there was no time for a private good-bye. Only minutes at the bloody town line.

“There’s not a day as will go by, that I won’t think of you,” he said. When he meant, _I will never stop trying to find you, beloved._

“Good,” she had replied. When she meant, _I’ll be waiting for you._

And then she and the lad got into the car, and he watched her pull away. And deep inside, he felt a fiber gone from his heart.

****

Emma Swan felt stupid, sitting in the doctor’s office. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It had been one night, in the little inn in some nowhere town in Maine. Henry had already been asleep, and she had gone down stairs, unable to sleep, planning to get a night cap to help her fall under. She couldn’t remember the man’s name, or where he was from, or even really what he looked like. Just a sense of leather and too much rum and eyes like the ocean.

Now she sat, looking at the sonogram. She was older, but apparently no wiser, and she was no more prepared for this now than she had been the first time. But just like Henry, she knew she would treasure this child to the edge of the world, or time.

Nine months later, when she’s holding the hand of her friend Sally from Lamaze class, and pushing and screaming, a memory of eyes like the deep blue sea get her through. The same eyes she sees on her son, with his shock of black hair, blinking up at her. When the nurse asks her, the name she gives him is one she’s never contemplated before.

“Liam. His name is Liam.”

****

It had taken so much. Abandoning his crew, outrunning the curse, and then the decision to let his ship go in order to get what he needed to get back to her. But it’s never a choice. When someone holds a part of your soul, you will do whatever is needed to find them again. So he does it, and while he will miss the _Jolly_ , he knows it won’t be one millionth of how much he misses golden hair and laughing green eyes and a spirit wild as the sea winds in a gale.

And now he’s standing here, and she’s on the other side of the door. And he knows she won’t remember him, but he hopes. He hopes.

He knocks and he can hear people sounds, and feet, and…the cry of a wee small babe. And for just a moment, he thinks he’s got the wrong apartment, until she pulls the door open. Her eyes are tired and look like she hasn’t slept well in days and her cheeks are still slightly puffy and her bosom has swelled. And in a wrap around her body, patterned with little ships and anchors, is a sleepy, fussy child with dark, dark downy curls and wide, blinking blue eyes.

“Swan.” He breathes it like a prayer, like a benediction, unbelieving and in awe. “At last.”

“Do I know you?” And for a moment, it seems like she does, as she looks between his eyes and the eyes of babe, startled.

“Look, I need your help.” He stepped forward and the spell breaks, her walls coming back up instantly. “Something’s happened, something terrible. Your family’s in trouble.”

“My family is right here,” she says, turning to move the baby away from him. “Who are you?”

_The love of your life_. “An old friend.” He knows, knows she has to remember, that Regina had to build a failsafe in. She was too clever a witch to not have, and even if not, Emma’s magic should tell her. “I know you don’t remember me, but I can make you.”

And he’s kissing her, like they kissed on the ship, only better, because he can feel the wriggle of the child between them. His son, he has a son, a precious, precious…

The pain is both temporal and spiritual when she uses her knee to dislodge him and shove him out the door with words about cops and handcuffs, the door slamming in his face. Because it’s not just the fibers that are Swan and her lad, Henry that his heart misses. Now there’s a third, unnamed and gaping like cannon shot.

****

He follows her, all dressed up, to dinner, and it hurts to see her there with another man. His true love, the mother of his…gods above, it hurts. But their interactions aren't those of lovers, thank god. At least not yet. He gets close enough to hear Emma thanking the man again for all the work he’s done with Henry’s soccer team. They chat more, about Henry and about the baby, and he still has no idea what his son is called.

When the man disappears, he slid into his seat. Their conversation was stilted, but he could see her expression shifting, when he gave her the address. When he told her to use her superpower. Her eyes searched his, just like she did that night, when they…when. And then he was gone, leaving her and it felt like his soul was tearing to walk away.

He saw her the next morning in the park, watching as she played with Henry and the baby and a woman he didn’t know, one who also had a pram. He watched as she left them and walked towards where he had told her to meet him. “Swan, it’s so good to see you again.”

He tries to tell her, and he knows that in this world, this mundane, grey place, that he must sound stark raving insane, destined for bedlam. And then she’s attaching the cuff to his wrist and it’s horribly, achingly familiar, the beanstalk all over again. “Swan! You’re making a terrible mistake. You’re family needs you. Swan!”

They take him to what passes as this realms dungeon and lock him inside, feeding him something he would not wish on a self-respecting pig. He’s there for hours, until suddenly his gaoler comes to him and tells him the charges have been dropped and he’s free.

Stepping from the dim interior, he’s briefly blinded by the light, until she calls to him.

“We need to talk,” she says. And she’s angry, so angry, but she’s looking at him, not with recognition, but like she really sees him.

“If what you’re saying is true, I’d have to give up my life here. I have Henry and the baby; I have friends, and someone who I could maybe…maybe find something with.” He sees the heartache.

“Perhaps there’s a man that you love in the life you’ve lost.” And he hears the pain in his voice, hears the ache and the longing, and sees it in her eyes, that she feels it. And then she’s taking the potion and drinking it.

Her eyes fly open, and she knows him, thank the Gods. “Hook!”

“Did you miss me?” He opens his arms, and she’s in them, and she’s home.

****

Henry is at a friend’s house, and won’t be home until morning, but the baby is with her friend Sally. She drops him at her apartment, and goes, and he find himself pacing, back and forth, until he’s sure there’s a hole in the floor. Finally, the key’s in the lock and the door is creaking open, and she’s there, wearing the wrap again and carrying the stroller and a bag he assumes holds the things one needs for a baby here.

He’s frozen in place until she comes to him, carefully undoing the wrap and taking the sleeping child in her arms. “Killian,” she says, and her voice is soft, like when she woke him in the morning of their one night together, soft and sighing and needful. “There is someone you need to meet. This is your son.”

He’s crying, suddenly, tears streaming down his face and down hers too, and he feels for a moment what Snow and Charming must always feel, the horror at missing out on time combined with the joy of reunion. Gods, how did it not cripple them? “He’s everything, Swan. You, Henry, this lad. Everything.”

She kisses him then, soft and slow, with promise and hope. “His name is Liam, Killian. He was yours all along, even when I didn’t know it.”

Liam. His son.

****

There is a brief unpleasantness when Henry’s soccer coach stops by unexpectedly, but Emma prevails and is fine, and yet the fear of what could have happened to her, the potential to find her and lose her again in an instant is breathtaking. This is what he always knew of love, that it gives you something precious, but also something to lose. What he had forgotten, however, was how much the joy outweighs the fear.

Liam sleeps in his bassinet at the foot of the bed that night, fitfully. But they don’t sleep much anyway. It has been a year for him, and also for her, but differently, and they can’t stop touching each other, lips and hands, faces and bodies, meeting again and again like a new map of an old world.

In the morning, she introduces him to Henry as Killian, an old friend, and he knows the boy is bright, because he takes one look at this supposed stranger and his little brother, and his face sets into a hard line that makes Killian’s heart ache. Unsurprisingly, when they stop for lunch north of Boston and Emma takes Liam to the women’s room to change him, Henry leans forward.

“So just where have you been?” he asks. Emma had prepared him for this conversation.

“I was out of the country on work, lad. I got called to go right after you and your mother returned to the city.” He paused. “I wasn’t able to check in until now.”

Henry seems only vaguely mollified with his answer. “You know, my dad, he just…he left her, in the worst way. Left both of us. And I’m not saying we needed him. We did fine on our own. But you need to decide if you’re in or out. Because I won’t let you do to mom and Liam what he did to us.”

This, he has an answer to. “Henry, I swear to you, as long as your mother will let me be in her life, in all of your lives, I’ll be here. I love her, and Liam, and even though we don’t know each other yet, I have loved her stories of you. You have my word as a gentleman.”

Henry mulls that over, and he wonders a little if he is developing his own inherited super power. Finally, he nods, holding out his hand. “Welcome to the family.”

****

He waits in the car with Henry and Liam while Emma goes up to the loft. Killian’s presence is clearly explained by the baby Henry is watching sleep in the back seat with an expression of brotherly pride, but Charming and Snow are another matter. He also doesn’t know what this new curse has wrought. It’s possible they’ll have no memory of their daughter at all.

When she returns shortly after, her face is glowing, and she tells Henry that the people inside are old friends, and that they’ve asked them to stay, so Henry grabs his bag and hers and Liam’s out of the car, and carries them up. She grabs his hand and whispers that today is a day for surprises, and he follows her up, carrying his sweet boy in his car seat.

David opens the door and helps take the bags from Henry, then stops when he sees Killian and his daughter. He’s starring at the car seat, and then back at them, and for just a second, he worries his old pal Dave is about to wallop him in the jaw. Then Mary Margaret steps into view and he knows what Emma means by surprises.

“Henry, it’s nice to meet you. Please come in,” she says, her eyes never leaving his, and she’s scandalized, he can tell, because he knows what they thought of him in the Enchanted Forest, when he had opted to leave and search for his ship. He thought they were the ones who sent him the note with the potion, but they clearly don’t remember.

Soon, Henry is asleep on the bed upstairs, and Liam is in his mother’s arms, nursing. He looks at Snow and David, at her round body and full face, and he feels a kinship they can’t yet share, having missed all these months of their pregnancy, just as he missed Emma’s.

Finally, Snow works up the courage to ask, “When?”

“The night before Pan brought the curse down on us all,” Emma says, pausing to switch Liam to her other side and he can’t stop his wonder at the sight of her and their tiny boy. “I went to Killian on the _Jolly Roger_.”

“But what about Neal?” her mother asks, and her voice is lost and confused. “I thought…you were so sorry when he died.”

It’s a story he knows, knows she never wanted to tell, but Liam is done nursing and so she lift’s him and sets a burp rag over his shoulder and then hands the boy to him, and he could die of happiness right now, all things being equal. And then she tells them, the full truth, with nothing left out, of how Neal had left her in Phoenix, holding his stolen goods, and how he did nothing to stop her going to jail for it. She tells them of giving birth to Henry, shackled to a hospital bed with no options and no hope.

And she tells them how Neal knew, long before she and Gold went to find him, that the curse was broken, and he could come find her. And that Neal didn’t.

“I know David is your first love, and I know that he’s your true love,” Emma says, holding her mother’s hand. Both of them are crying, and if he’s honest, so are he and David. “But that isn’t everyone’s story, and it would never be mine. He’ll have a place in Henry’s life, if he wants it, but my heart is already spoken for.”

They are quiet for a long time, staring at their daughter and him and their son, watching as Liam snuggles against his chest, his little hand wrapped around the charms of his necklace. Finally, Snow looks at him. “If you ever hurt them, there is no where you could run where we wouldn’t find you.”

He nods, and Emma rests her hand on his left arm, above his brace. “I would sooner die than let harm come to them by any hand.”

Then the prince smiles at him. “Welcome to the family.”

****

Zelena is a hard fight, and it costs them. More than once, it nearly costs them everything. But her ruse of being Ariel doesn’t work, because he has told Emma that sad tale and she has granted him absolution, as only she can. So, when they try to kill him with the water, it isn’t CPR that saves him, but True Love’s Kiss. And in the confrontation in the barn, Emma’s white magic joins with Regina’s to protect them all and save their son. Because Zelena hasn’t had to wait for Snow’s child. Liam is already a product of True Love, and they come so close to losing him.

As soon as it’s over, they settle into their lives, awaiting the birth of Emma’s brother. In the meantime, they find a little house near the sea, and Gold, in gratitude, gives it to Emma to have for his grandson. Marco brings them a small cradle, shaped like a ship, and he can’t believe how welcomed he is now that Emma stands by his side, has made her choice and her love of him known.

Graham’s birth is heralded, the newest prince in a family of them, and he wonders, if they decide to have another babe one day, will it be a golden hair princess like her mother? He thinks he might like that.

Then Zelena dies in her cell, and leaving the children with Snow and Charming, they go to check the mysterious light, and end up sucked in it. Only, it’s not only Emma who will be horribly gone if they make a mistake, it will be Henry and Liam as well, and he can’t bear the thought. He fights harder than he ever thought possible to make sure they keep things on track, so that they can get home. There are hiccups and one unintended consequence, but when the portal spits them back outside of the barn, they run as fast as they can, for their boys and home, home, home.

That night, they sleep in the big master bed, Henry snuggled to Emma’s side and Liam in between them, and he knows for certs, more than he ever has, that he can face whatever Emma’s being the Savior can throw at them. After all, True Love is the greatest magic of all, and for the first time in centuries, he has that in spades.


End file.
